Dust storms!!

[I love Cooper]

In Sydney this morning the sky was dead red!!! Wow!

And now at about 11:30am in Brisbane the sky is getting oranger by the minute! lol.

Anything in Melb??

[MENACING*STORM]

^ similar to my bedroom this morning

[Bullets]

Oh it was crazy, probably at its worse by midday.

horrible wind and dust, its everywhere

[Super Cronk]

yeah i had to walk to the bus stop in it. Wasnt as bad at 6 in the morning...it was really orange and dusty...but a few hours later it picked up heaps in st marys.

[Blitzkrieg]

In Sydney this morning the sky was dead red!!! Wow!

And now at about 11:30am in Brisbane the sky is getting oranger by the minute! lol.

Anything in Melb??

No dust storm here (quite a lot of rain - YAY!), but we did have a couple of minor earth tremors within a few seconds of each other on Tuesday evening at about tea-time. The epicentre was just a few k's from where I live...

Earth tremors hit Melbourne's south east

PETER GREGORY
September 23, 2009

Residents across Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs have told of shaking houses and loud "bangs" after two small earthquakes rocked the area last night.

Geoscience Australia recorded magnitude 3 and 2.6 earthquakes south of Frankston within 13 seconds of each other at 6.21pm. There have been no reports of injuries or serious damage to property.

Frankston resident Rosa Totaro said she was scared and ran from her double-storey house when she felt the tremor.

She said window and cabinet glass shook, and she believed the tremor was stronger than those felt on two previous occasions over the last year.

‘‘I was scared. I ran downstairs - out,’’ she said.

Mrs Totaro said she received calls from family and friends confirming tremors in Langwarrin and South Frankston.

Carrum Downs resident Larry Ma said that unlike other recent tremors "things were shaking up and down instead of going left and right".

Simon Mansfield of Frankston South said the tremor "felt like King Kong was running across our single-storey tiled roof".

Another reader reported a "huge rumble and feeling the house shake", while others told of loud "banging" noises.

"I actually thought it sounded like a plane had crashed in the back yard, or that a car had smacked into the house," wrote Helen Vanderpol of Frankston.

"It sounded like a muffled thump and the whole house shook for about 10 to 15 seconds".

Age reader Matthew Muir said he felt the tremor hit Berwick at 6.21pm as "a rumble".

"[It] lasted around 15 seconds, and finish[ed] with a slightly louder, and felt, jolt," he said.

"We heard large rumblings and felt [the] ground vibrate. It all ended with a loud bang," Rowena Esslinger from Narre Warren said.

Scores of people took to online networking site Twitter to report the earthquake, with Pakenham, Cockatoo and the Mornington Peninsula among the areas it was reportedly felt.

Geoscience Australia seismologist David Jepsen characterised the quakes as "small".

"They were small in that they wouldn’t cause any damage and they would only have been felt by people up to 25 kilometres away from their epicentres," Mr Jepsen said.

"It was pretty much isolated to the greater Frankston area. We’ve had hundreds of hits on our website of people saying they felt a sharp jolt. Other people actually saw their windows rattle."

My story - I was sitting watching the TV, and I heard (and saw!) the windows rattle a bit, and the house shook very lightly (barely noticeable) for about 10 seconds.

Then a few seconds later, a second shockwave (the magnitude 3 tremor) just sort of went WOOSH! under the house. It was bloody freaky - I could feel it through the couch!

Everyone's okay, thank goodness... no damage to the house, or anyone therein